


Oracle on the Delta

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Deltans, M/M, New Orleans, Original Character(s), Post-Mission, anxitey attacks, beignets, betazoids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the five-year mission over, everyone expects the Enterprise bridge crew to sign up immediately for the next tour. Pavel, plagued by panic attacks, leaves San Fransisco and everything familiar behind to travel to a new city. He takes with him only a small slip of paper with a message that reminds him of the one he has left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Star Trek Big Bang's fourth round. The lovely Alaria's art can be found [ here ](http://alaria.livejournal.com/17965.html) and the fantastic Mementis' fanfix is located [here](http://mementis.livejournal.com/198622.html).
> 
> There is a podfic version of this fic [here ](http://soundcloud.com/veradragonmuse/oracle-on-the-delta).

At a bar with wide windows and a dozen lazily turning fans, Pavel slid into a booth and ordered a drink the color of emeralds. Even inside the air was as thick and wet as a used bath towel. Everything smelled like smoke and his fingers were soon sticky with the condensation of his glass. On a rising step that might generously be called a stage, a few idle musicians warmed up their hands with scales and their lips with whiskey. A saxophonist began to play wild scales before settling into something mellow and sweet.

“Can I get you anything else, sugar?” The bartender sauntered over, hips swaying with promise.

“Another glass, please.”

It had been a long time since he’d had good alcohol. He spun the glass slowly in his hands, watching the absinthe coat the sides of the glass. A shadow fell over the table.

“People used to believe you would hallucinate when they drank this.” He told the new arrival. “Because of the wormwood. They called it the green fairy.”

“Why haven’t you signed up for the second tour yet?” Kirk sat down across from him. The five year mission hadn’t been kind to the Captain, leaving him drawn and no longer so quick with a quip. He still cut a shocking presence through a room, drawing eyes and smiles to him as easily as breathing.

“I am thinking. It is a big decision.” He sipped from the glass, watching the Captain through the distortion of glass and liquid.

“We all agreed.”

“It is a vacation, is it not?” Pavel shrugged. “Six months leave. I have time to make up my mind. The counselor tells me I should take it slow.”

“If this is about Abraxis...”

“It is about what it is about.” Pavel cut him off, the first taste of anxiety rising bitter to the back of his throat. “Now. Will you drink with me or will you go? At this moment you are not my commanding officer and I do not wish to discuss business.”

“A drink.” Kirk agreed.

He stayed for three rounds, not even the slightest wobble in his step after he left. Every eye in the bar followed the Captain out and then turned to Pavel, who only shrugged. Kirk was a magnetic force unto himself. It was hard to stay and enjoy after that. He headed out into the thick air, breathing in lung fulls of the muck. The intense heat suited his mood as he wound his way through the slowly filling streets to the hotel he’d looked up before leaving San Francisco.

“Good evening, Sir. Checking in?”

“Yes, thank you.” He slid his I.D. across the counter. The clerk looked up startled, but asked no questions.

“A suite has been prepared for you. Do you need help with your bags?”

“No, thank you.” 

There were no bags to be helped with. He had left everything in the bleak room assigned to him on campus. It had looked identical to the dorm room he had shared with another young prodigy, Chandra Doherty, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Chandra’s brilliance lay in engines. Often when Scotty went off on a tear, Pavel would think of how well he and Chandra would have liked each other. But Chandra had been on the Intrepid, gone to dust under Nero’s rage. Pavel remembered Chandra’s boisterous laugh and casual arrogance while standing in that terrible, bland little room with its regulation bed and bureau. His breath had hitched, threatening the oncoming storm. He couldn’t give himself time to think about what he was going to do. So he ran, without luggage or a thought in his head. 

The shuttle bay was full of departing officers, many still in uniform. He blindly let the crowd push and pull him until he stumbled into a shuttle and an open seat. There were places he could have gone. With Nyota and Spock to visit museums across the globe or just a few minutes into the city to visit with Hikaru and his family or met up with Scotty who was doubtless still aboard the Enterprise.

He could have uncurled his right fist, where a sliver of paper with messy handwriting still read, “If you need me, I’ll be there” with comm numbers spread beside it in invitation. 

But every time he even thought about it, the red lines crawled into his vision in warning. So he’d taken that random shuttle, let it whisk him away to a city he had never visited.

The hotel room his thumbprint opened was not at all bland or bleak. It was a gorgeous expanse of antique woods and downy pillows in cream and gold. Thick curtains had been left open to expose the view of a verdant courtyard. The bathroom was equally extravagant with a bathtub larger than his bed on the Enterprise. He filled it with hot water despite the heat and sunk into it clothes and all.

It was probably a mad thing to do, but Pavel had felt half-mad for some time. There was no one around to see, anyway. When he’d had enough of swimming his clothes, he threw the wet cloth over the towel rack and bundled himself into the oversized bed until the blankets nearly smothered him. The piece of paper he’d carried with him from San Fransisco lay wrinkled on the bedside table. He touched it once, with regret, then fell into a deep, dark sleep.

He woke to the first light of dawn creeping across the room. Pleased with the sight, he watched it until the entire room was flooded with sunlight. Only then did his stomach start to complain. Without options, he got back into his still damp clothes and headed out in the morning light. He followed a trickle of other tourists to a dark green canopied restaurant with a five item menu. Within minutes he was presented with a cup of rich smelling coffee and a plate piled high with fried dough and powdered sugar. The waiter pleasantly repeated the word ‘beignets’ until Pavel could pronounce it correctly.

For the sake of novelty, he savored his breakfast. There was no rush to go anywhere, no shift to be made, no plans to be upheld. He was without obligation or companions for the first time in five years. He waited for boredom to set in.

A troupe of laughing women, makeup smeared around their eyes and high heels in their hands walked past him. They looked as though they were only now headed home. He watched them until they disappeared. An artist, hair hanging in thick dreadlocks, set up his post for the day. The doors of an antique shop were thrown open and an ancient dog huffed a sigh and settled by the front door. All around him the city woke up and he was fascinated by it.

For the rest of the week, no matter what he did during the day and night, he always returned to the cafe for breakfast. He had never thought of himself as particularly interested in people before, but now he could not stop watching them. Maybe it was the isolation of being shipboard or the tight focus he often aimed as his controls. He had just never really noticed anyone like this before. 

“You a painter?” The artist with dreads asked on the morning of the sixth day.

“No, just a tourist.” Pavel grinned, then for the first time examined the man’s wares. They were set out against a low wrought iron fence. They were street scenes for the most part, a few exaggerated caricatures that Pavel had seen him draw of other tourists for ready credits. 

“You observe like an an artist. Let me draw you.”

“I do not think that would be a good idea,” Pavel pointed to one picture where a girl’s curly hair spilled over the page. “I do not like to think what you would do to me.”

“Not like that. Something a little more realistic.” The artist tipped him a wink. “No charge.”

Pavel waited for the red lines to come, for his vision to fade. Nothing came.

“Let me get my coffee.”

Pavel rescued his mug, then returned to settle uneasily on the stool he’d seen others perch on. It was odd to be stared at so intently between scratches of a soft pencil. Pavel, out of sheer defense, stared back. The artist was handsome, Pavel realized as he watched his hands flash over the paper. Beautiful mocha skin, high cheekbones and eyes as startling shade of green as absinthe.

“There,” the artist said some immeasurable time later, “it’s quick and dirty. You should come back to my studio. I could paint you.”

Pavel looked over the sketch which was far far too generous. He looked fragile and nearly angelic in it, perched on his stool with a faraway look in his eyes. Amused, he glanced back up at the artist who stared intently back at him.

“I would like that.” Pavel said softly.

The artist lived in one of the beautiful crumbling buildings that Pavel had admired on his rambling walks. He could hear the call of other voices through the walls as they climbed up a tight staircase.

“Roommates,” the artist shrugged, taking Pavel’s hand and drawing him up into the attic.

The tiny room at the top of the house gathered heat at prolific rate, bringing sweat to his brow. Pavel briefly admired the skylights and the smell of oil paints, before being drawn down into the mess of the artist’s bed. He found that fingers clever with a pencil could certainly find their way easily around a body. Their overheated, sweat laden skin moved easily together. When the artist slid into Pavel, everything turned lush and electric. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been sated by touch and desire without worry of consequence. When Pavel came it was with a low groan of satisfaction that echoed out from bone to skin.

In the aftermath, the artist propped himself up on one elbow and grinned down at him.

“What’s your name?” He asked, all honey and distraction.

“Pavel.” Pavel smiled up at him. “What is yours?”

“Nick. Pleasure to meet you Pavel.” Nick rolled off the bed, reaching for a long handled paintbrush. “I’d still like to paint you. That wasn’t just a line.”

So Pavel spent a drowsy afternoon lying naked in the sun from the skylight. Nick posed him with his face mostly hidden in his arms, so he didn’t see the harm in it. The only person who might care was out of reach and had never laid claim to him anyway. He pushed the thought away and gave into the sun. Everything slurred together in the warmth and the sound of paint on canvas.

Good smells started to rise up to the garret just as Pavel realized he was hungry.

“You can go down, get something to eat.” Nick said distractedly, smudging at something on the canvas. “It’s usually a traveling circus here. No one will mind.”

Pavel dressed, glancing at the canvas as he went. It was soaked in color and he thought that the stretch of his pale body among the sheets looked washed out and lost. Maybe that was the point. His stomach roiled.

The kitchen was a cozy nook of a room with three women moving in a chaotic circle around the stove. Another woman and man were laying plates at a table.

“Who are you?” The man challenged.

“One of Nick’s boys.” A woman at the stove called out. “Leave him be. Least we can do for the poor worn out thing is give him something to eat.”

The food was a fish stew so spicy that he ate mounds of the homemade bread to keep his tongue from burning. Conversation flowed around him and slowly he found himself drawn into a debate about modern art. He didn’t think that he had opinions on it, but by the time everything had been reduced to crumbs he was ready to argue his points to the death.

“Relax, darling.” Said Annie, who was a potter by trade and Betazoid by origin. She kept her hair short and spiked in a flurry of neon colors. Pavel had liked her immediately. “You’ll sprain something.”

“I am used to forceful personalities.”

“Is there anything left for me?” Nick loped into the room, smiled idly at Pavel before circling to the stew bowl like a starving cat.

“I should go back to my hotel.” Pavel decided, rising in a long stretch.

“How long are you staying?” Annie asked.

“A few months maybe.”

“You can’t live in a hotel for months.” 

“You’re not going to swindle him into living in that sad excuse for a bedroom,” another woman chided.

“Why not?” Annie grinned. “Rent is due soon. You don’t take up much space, do you Pavel?”

“I will look.” He said agreeably, writing down his contact information at the hotel room for her. 

He had imagined that would be the end of it. Why would anyone want to share space with someone they’d only met for a few hours and said nothing about themselves? The next day, Pavel walked along the river. He watched the barges floating serenely by and thought about the mechanics of steering them so gracefully. He wondered if Hikaru had ever piloted a boat, but could not really imagine his friend behind the wheel of something that moved so slowly. 

When he returned to the hotel with a vague idea of an afternoon swim in the pool, there was a comm message waiting for him from Annie. She rattled off an address and told him to stop by whenever if he was interested in the room.

Carefully, Pavel sat on the end of the bed, hands folded neatly in his lap. He stared blankly at his interlocked fingers and thought about choices. Paths spread out before him in terrible numbers. They split and spilt again until he could see nothing, but throbbing red lines that splintered his vision and sent him into hyperventilation.

“Focus.” He told himself sharply. “There is no use in becoming hysterical.”

With painful slowness, the paths began to collapse into each other and his vision cleared. His breath stayed shaky.

“I cannot stay in a hotel.” He decided. “It is too temporary.”

The last of the paths straightened out, wavered then disappeared from view. He wiped away the moisture that had gathered on his cheeks. As soon as he was calm enough, he played Annie’s message again and scrawled out the address. 

The thick heat of the afternoon sun settled against his skin until it prickled with sweat. He passed store fronts, doors and windows wide open and fans rotating over the counters. The house was settled between a convenience store and bar only just opening for the afternoon. Someone was playing the saxophone not far away, the sound carrying on the air like a mournful bird. 

The steps to the porch sagged a little under his feet. Windchimes cut from raw metal hung unpainted at odd intervals over the wicker furniture. He studied them as he rang the bell, rocking on his heels as he waited.

“Just a second!” Annie called from inside. When she threw open the door, her hair was wetly plastered to her head and a towel wrapped loosely around her body. “Pavel! You came!”

“I did.” He agreed. “I’m sorry to interrupt your shower.”

“Oh don’t worry about it. I’m always in the bath. Keeps my brain cool.”

“Who’re you speaking with?” Another girl emerged from the kitchen with an awkward limp. She had the perfectly smooth scalp of a Deltan.

“This is Pavel,” Annie grabbed his wrist and dragged him inside. “Pavel, this is Edris. She has the master bedroom.”

“Did you show him the room yet?” Edris surveyed him coolly. “I’m not learning his name unless he takes the room.”

“Nice.” Annie rolled her eyes. “It’s this way.”

The hallways ran straight through the house to the other side with the kitchen on the right and the cramped living room on the left when coming through the front door.

“Shot gun style,” Annie explained as she pointed out Edris’ bedroom and her own on opposite sides of the hall. “So called because you could shoot a bullet through the front door and it would go straight out the back door. If you keep both the doors open, it keeps the house cool.”

“Clever,” he agreed.

“Now your room.” She had to muscle the door a little. “Wood swells in this weather.”

“They used wood?” He looked around him with renewed interest. Natural materials dated the building far older than he’d originally placed it.

“I know, right? It’s technically a historical preservation site, so they have to maintain in the way it was created. Here we go.” The door finally gave way to her coaxing.

The room was certainly small, much closer in size to his berth on the Enterprise than the extravagant hotel room. There was a full bed wedged against the far wall under a wide window. It took up most of the room, leaving just enough space for slim chest of drawers. The wood floors groaned under his feet as he stepped inside. The window looked out onto a small walled in courtyard. Wrought iron chairs clustered around a glass topped table and plants grew in a riot from every corner. 

“I like it.” 

“Really?” She looked around the tiny space.

“Really.”

“Great! You won’t have to pay a full third of the rent, it’s hardly fair when you’re room is half the size of either of ours. Edris and I can barely digest the same kinds of food, so we usually do our own thing grocery wise. There’s a low grade replicator, it’s on the fritz right now, but it’ll cough up decent enough meals when you’re low on credits.”

“I can fix it.”

“Oh, no I mean, isn’t it pretty complicated in there?” Annie tilted her head to one side as if seeing him for the first time. “What do you do anyway?”

“Nothing at the moment,” he said, which was as honest as he cared to be. “But I am handy with computers of all sorts.”

The replicator proved to have both a mechanical failure and a coding bug. It took tweezers and the better part of an hour for him to get it sorted, but when he was finished it produced a very credible lemonade.

“I am impressed.” Edris had watched him silently from the rickety kitchen table, a PADD in her lap. “Annie tells me you are staying.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Why should I mind?” Edris shrugged elegantly. “If you can fix things, you are always welcome in this house, Pavel.”

“Thank you,” he washed his hands in the sink. Fresh tap water continued to be a pleasure to revel in. “Are you also an artist?”

“I dance.” She touched her left leg. “I’m currently recovering from an injury.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It’s nothing. A few more weeks and I will be back on stage.”

“Is that what brought you to Earth?” He leaned against the counter. “I don’t mean to pry, only the Deltans I have met prefer to keep to their homeworlds.”

“I’m surprised you’ve met any Deltans at all. We’re a homebody people, but I came here with my dance troupe several years ago and discovered ballet. There is something similar back home, but not with the same grace in movement. I stayed to study it and found I liked Earth very much. I assume I will return eventually.”

“Why?” He asked before he could stop himself. “I mean. If you like it here, why go back?”

“My family. You always go home for family.”

“Did you fix it?” Annie stuck her head round the door, still wearing only a towel.

“It should work properly now.”

“Thank you!” She rushed to the replicator. “Salsa, mild and tortilla chips. I’ve got beers in the fridge. Do you like beer, Pavel?”

“Some of it.”

“Good,” Annie flashed a smile at Edris, “something we can all share. Let’s sit out back and get to know each other.”

“I need to go back to the hotel and retrieve my things.” He’d accumulated civilian clothes and a backpack over the last week. 

“Alright, but beer and chatting as soon as you get back,” she pointed a finger at him until he nodded his agreement.

There was a message waiting on his hotel comm. It had Kirk’s signature stamped on it. Pavel deleted it, packed his things, tucked the precious slip of paper into his pocket and checked out. The deadline was months away and right now he wanted nothing more than to forget Ensign Chekov.

“That’s all you have?” Annie challenged when he walked in, bag over his shoulder.

“I travel light.”

“Well, you’re not really traveling now.” She threw a companionable arm around his shoulders. “Edris reminded me that I have terrible manners. You know that I’m an empath, right?”

“I had assumed, yes.”

“Cool. So I won’t do it without your permission, but sometimes I can’t help it blah blah blah. You know the speech?”

“Yes,” he kept his shoulders loose under her arm. “I occasionally have panic attacks. They are not serious, but I would not wish to alarm you.”

“Really? You don’t seem the kind of guy to panic.”

“Appearances,” He said neutrally and she nodded.

“I get it. Come on, let’s crack open those beers.”

The evening settled around him as companionably as Annie’s arm over his shoulders. Edris and Annie spoke with the long ease of good friends, slowly coaxing him to talk more. Unlike the group from the night before, there were no arguments and little discussion of art. Instead, they talked about local politics and an upcoming music festival. Late in the night, clouds gathering around the moon, the saxophone began to play again.

“Our late night ghost.” Annie grinned.

“There is no such thing as ghosts.” Edris sniffed.

“But we don’t know where he’s playing from.” Annie nudged Pavel. “We’ve never seen him, no one in the neighborhood knows who he is. Just that sometimes out of nowhere, music!”

The ghost played Pavel to sleep that night, a bluesy solo that colored his dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

“Harder,” Edris commanded. Pavel pushed against her toes until she let out a satisfied hiss. “Good.”

“I think you will be too sore to practice if you do more.” Pavel released slowly and watched her flex her foot.

“I’ll be too stiff to practice if I don’t finish.” She stood warily. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“I have already told you that I would.”

“It will be boring and likely take all morning.”

“Which is why I will bring a book. Don’t fuss.”

“I find I’m nervous.” She sighed gustily, kicking her bad leg upward.

“It is nerve wracking, but you will be fine.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Take it from your physical therapist.” He said solemnly because he knew it would make her laugh.

When Edris had found that he tended to wake early, she had press ganged him into helping her run through her morning exercises. She saw an actual physical therapist twice a week, but that wasn’t enough for her own demanding recovery timetable. They had spent many arduous mornings running her body through its paces.

“Alright. I’m ready.” She shook herself out and slipped into sneakers, grabbing the bag awaiting her by the door.

They walked in silence down the sidewalk. Edris had turned inward, face utterly still and Pavel left her to it. He waved to Tom, who was sweeping up the Friday night detritus from the front of the bar. The bookstore on the corner where he’d whiled away many pleasant hours was still shuttered. The antique paperbacks filled his hands and smelled far more pleasant than a PADD. He had acquired a small hoard of them. Into a broken spined copy of Auden’s poetry, he’d tucked the slip of paper with it’s plaintive ‘If you need me, I’ll be there’ and let it sink to the bottom of an increasing pile of books and other things.

“Edris!” A clutch of graceful young girls broke apart from their conversation to embrace her.

“Hello beauties.” Edris laughed as they surrounded her.

It was clear that she was already welcomed back into the fold, but Pavel lingered anyway as he’d promised. He watched her practice from a quiet corner of the studio on the chair usually reserved for chatting parents. The perfect line of Edris’ wounded leg arching up towards the sky brought a ridiculous smile to his face. He nearly missed the studio door cracking open to admit another dancer’s body. She slid into the chair next to him, watching quietly.

“Did the Captain send you?” He asked, surprised by the return of bitterness. It had been pleasantly missing these past few weeks.

“He didn’t have to. I got worried all on my own.” Nyota answered quietly, her eyes trained on the line of dancers. “What have you been up to?”

“Thinking.” He watched Edris bend at the knees, one arm floating upward.

“Thinking about what?” She put a hand over his, warm and familiar. He had always liked the perfect oval shape of her nails. 

“It does not matter.” He turned his palm to capture her fingers.

“You know, if you weren’t a genius you’d be graduating college at this age.” She said softly. “You’d be thinking about what you wanted to do with the rest of your life.”

“So your point is that this is somehow normal?”

“Maybe not normal exactly, but expected.”

He didn’t know how to answer that, so he sat in silence and held her hand. Edris approached as practice ended.

“This is Nyota.” He offered. “Nyota this is my friend, Edris.”

“Amata doplay, Edris,” Nyota said with a curious lilt.

“Amata doplay, Nyota,” Edris smiled. “Always a pleasure to meet a human who speaks Deltan.”

“Only a bit,” Nyota said modestly.

“Have you come to take Pavel home?” Edris glanced at him and he shook his head just as Nyota said,“No. I wanted to see how he was doing, that’s all.”

“You should come to dinner then. He has perfected only a single recipe, but it’s worth tasting.”

“I’d like that.” Nyota smiled, “but I’m not traveling alone.”

Pavel’s heart sunk. He and Nyota were not important enough to have their images constantly cycled through the newsfeeds, but Spock’s face was easily the most known aside from the Captain’s. There was no way Edris and Annie couldn't identify him.

“Please, bring who you wish. We’ll have plenty to eat. Here, the address.” Edris took the PADD sticking out from Nyota’s bag and tapped an address into it, much to Nyota’s surprise. Pavel was used to Edris’ disregard of personal space and private property. Deltans had little use for either. “Come by anytime after six. We’ll leave the door open, come straight to the back.”

“I look forward to it.”

Pavel waited until Nyota had kissed his cheek and disappeared out into the street to turn on Edris.

“It is not like you to be so friendly.”

“It is not like you to hold hands with the most famous linguist of the 23rd century. Or is it?” She clucked her tongue to the roof of her mouth in disapproval. “La, Pavel. Did you think we didn’t know? You’re as white as a sheet.”

“I thought maybe... No one talks much about me.”

“We did a background check before you moved in.” She said as though it were obvious.

“But you never said...”

“What would we say? You didn’t wish to talk about it, so we did not discuss it.” She hooked her arm through his, almost possessively.

“I-” but the words stuck in his throat, a warning of what could happen if he voiced it. What waited in the dark spaces of his own mind. “I just need time.” 

“And you’ll have it. We will only have dinner and they will go.”

“You do not know my crew.” 

Still Pavel found himself warming to the idea of seeing Nyota and Spock. They were calm, sturdy people for the most part. After the disastrous mission on Abraxis, Nyota, who normally avoided anything that smacked of maternal care, had pulled Pavel into a tight hug. When he had begun to cry taken off guard by the needed kindness of the embrace, she had walked them away from the gathered crowd. He’d spent the rest of the afternoon in her quarters, a cool washcloth over his eyes and the rise and fall of her voice in his ears as she read him Pushkin in the original.

When she thought him asleep, she’d let Spock in and they’d talked quietly. It reminded him of his parents in the middle of the night enjoying a last cup of tea together before coming to bed. In the morning, Spock had debriefed him while they were both out of uniform. The informality must have pained the Commander, but he never showed it, making the whole experience far kinder than it could have been.

Pavel left Edris to go home and walked the few blocks to the open air market. He bought two fat eggplants, bright red tomatoes, an onion chaffing in its dry outer skin, fresh baked baguettes coated in garlic and a block of goat cheese. There was a distinct pleasure of shopping under a wide sky for food that had grown in the ground. Replicated food had never bothered him. He found the programs adequate in capturing the taste of the real thing. Yet he liked the smell of the tomatoes when he held them to his nose.

He stopped in the bright yellow stucco building where Annie kept her pottery wheel. It was a riot of artists tucked into every crevice and always smelled of chemicals and herbs. Pavel usually spent his mornings with her, helping her unload the kiln and preparing blocks of clay for the day. When she started on her work, he would read or start the meandering walks that made up his afternoons.

Today, she was slowly pulling up an enormous vase. The even gentle pressure of her fingers drew life from shapeless mass. Her hands and arms were caked with drying clay. A nearby radio sang in rising crescendos and occasionally a burst of laughter trickled down from the floor above.

“Hey.” She looked up briefly from her work. “Did you bring me lunch?”

He produced an orange and a fresh roll from the bag, settling them on the tiny table that she kept her PADD on. 

“Edris says that you know who I am.”

“Of course we do. You’re a little bit famous, you know.” She passed her wrist over her forehead, leaving a smear of muddy dust. “But you’re also so profoundly sad, most of the time. And you seemed happier when you were with us, playing tourist. So I told Edris not to let on that we knew.”

He sank into the fold out chair, all limbs again like he was still awkwardly seventeen. He had never been a melancholy person. Even through those terrible early teen years when he was too smart and too acne ridden to be anything like popular, he had been happy on his own. That had changed after Abraxis. Being alone was a heavy burden instead of a joy.

“Two friends of mine are coming over tonight for dinner.” He told her instead of the story held back behind clenched teeth. “I think you’ll like them.”

“Do you?” She got up and, heedless of her clay streaked clothes, pulled him into a hug. “Then I will look forward to meeting them.”

He pressed a grateful kiss to her hair as she rocked him in her arms. When they parted, she kissed his cheek and gave him a soft push.

“On your way, Pasha. There’s work to be done.”

The pet name, tumbled so many times from his parents’ lips, warmed him and carried him the rest of the way home. He spent the rest of the day tidying the house, before turning his attention to his cooking and the programming the replicator to create some decent side dishes. There was no space left for anxiety or reluctance. Every inch was filled with mindful preparation.

Edris and Annie arrived home, but left him to his own devices. He could hear them in the courtyard, chatting as they lit pungent torches to ward off insects. Pavel laid out bowls filled with replicated salad and sliced the bread.

The knock at the door stiffened his spine. He walked quickly, intercepting Annie’s well meaning attempt to get there first. The door swung open to reveal Nyota, leaning a little into Spock. She wore a floaty sundress he’d never seen before, white with bright yellow sunflowers. It looked a little big on her, nothing like her usual sharply tailored style and he liked it immediately. Spock’s clothes were more familiar, crisp grey trousers and long sleeved starched tunic that made up what Kirk called ‘Spock’s leisure uniform’.

“Hello, Pavel.” Nyota leaned forward to hug him again.

“Welcome.” He said brightly, watching Spock’s face closely over Nyota’s shoulder. It betrayed nothing. 

“This is Annie,” stepping out Nyota’s embrace. “Annie, this Nyota Uhura and Spock.”

“A pleasure to meet you both.” Annie sketched a rough bow.

“This dwelling, is it made of wood?” Spock asked.

“It is!” Annie beamed and ushered them all inside. “Let me give you the grand tour.”

Pavel trailed behind as Annie rattled off the history of the house. Given the nature of the house, the tour was short and ended in the courtyard where Edris was pouring lemonade into glasses. Spock’s hand rested on the small of Nyota’s back, Pavel noticed, when they sat down it migrated up to hollow between her shoulder blades. No wonder Nyota looked so happy. She looked up and caught his glance, then winked. He tore his attention away, a little embarrassed.

“A toast.” Annie raised her glass. “To new and old friends gathered.”

“Here, here.” Nyota grinned and their glasses came aloft to meet in the middle.

Pavel served the eggplant casserole in swift cuts.

“This is well-made.” Spock said after the first bite. “Why do we not have the recipe on the Enterprise replimats?”

“We could.” Nyota broke off a piece of bread. “But this, Pavel made himself.”

“Fascinating.” Spock examined the end of his fork. “I had thought the vegetables very fresh. Where did you get them?”

Pavel explained about the marketplace and Spock asked after similarities to other open air markets they had visited. Nyota asked Edris a question in Deltan and soon they were chatting away with no hope of anyone else understanding. 

“I got us dessert.” Annie had watched quietly the entire night, an unusual silence for her. Her eyes looked a little bright under the torches. “Who wants key lime pie?”

“I have never had it.” Spock looked to Nyota, who nodded. “But I should like to try it.”

“Never had key lime pie?” Annie got out of her seat and headed inside. “That’s a sin against the culinary gods.”

“I was not aware that gods came in such specific categories.”

“Annie swears by a million invisible spirits.” Edris speared a tomato with her fork. “It’s best not to question it.”

It turned out that key lime pie was a shade too sour for the Vulcan palette, but Nyota didn’t seem to mind finishing Spock’s piece for him. In a clear ploy to leave the Enterprise half of the party alone, Edris and Annie insisted on clearing the table.

“Go on then.” Pavel slumped in his chair. “You have questions.”

“Only one.” One thing Pavel always liked about Spock was that he looked you directly in the eye when he said hard things. “Are you content?”

It was a terribly strange question from a Vulcan. Then again, Spock was a terribly strange Vulcan. Or perhaps, Nyota had fed the words into his mouth as she stole his key lime pie.

“I am.” He tilted his head up to the starry sky, the first thread of the phantom saxophone player’s song dancing into the night.

“Then we will take our leave.”

“But we’ll visit.” Nyota added, rising in a cascade of sunflowers. “Between our museum trips.”

“I’d like that.” He said because he found that he would.


	3. Chapter 3

“What are you doing here?” Pavel asked, looking over the top of Little Women. It was an odd book with odder morals, but he liked the prose and Annie had recommended it. The windchimes rattled above his head, warning about one incoming front or another.

“I’ve heard that this is the place to score a homecooked meal.” Hikaru sprawled out into the rocking chair next to Pavel’s. It was painted a technicolor green with hideous purple swirls; Edris’ sole attempt at home improvement. “And you know. I missed you, you moron.”

“I am not a moron.” He closed the book around his index finger.

“Yeah, you kind of are sometimes.” Hikaru pushed his mirrored sunglasses up. There were dark circles under his eyes. “But that’s ok. You’re still my best friend if you can prevent me from starving to death.”

“You are very demanding.” But Pavel got up and made him a thick sandwich with a sour pickle that had Hikaru licking his fingers.

“I’ve never been here before.” Hikaru offered when the food was gone. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever come this far south.”

“We’ve been very far south of here.” Pavel shrugged. “But I can show you this place, if you like.”

“I like.”

They walked the streets that had become familiar to Pavel’s feet. He explained a little of this and that. Hikaru appreciated the ghost stories and bloody bits of history, insisting they walk through one of the famous graveyards.

“When you ran away,” Hikaru finally said as they stood in front of a mausoleum half-sunk into the ground, “I told everyone not to follow. I’m sorry I broke my own advice, but when Nyota said she’d seen you...”

“It is fine.” Pavel bumped against him companionably. “I missed you too. Though only a very little bit.”

“See, no one believes you’re a smartass. You show me sass and everyone else gets innocent sweetness.”

“Maybe you’re the only one that deserves it.” Pavel lifted an eyebrow. 

“Maybe.” Hikaru grinned as if he understood what Pavel really meant. “Hey, do I get to meet your roommates?”

“Why?” Pavel asked with narrow eyed suspicion. “Are you going to shake them down for information? Or flirt with them?”

“A little of one and a lot of the other.”

“Then no.”

“Aw, c’mon.”

“No means no.”

Annie took to Hikaru disturbingly well.

“I had to go into a tailspin.” Hikaru stood on his tiptoes, illustrating with one swoop of his arm. “It would have been certain death if it weren’t for this burst of warm air. Gave us that last extra boost.”

“What about the Ferengi?” Annie asked, wide eyed and on the edge of her chair. Edris and Pavel exchanged confused glances over her head. 

“Oh, we pulled him back in. I mean it would look pretty bad if a Federation ship let an unarmed civilian drop into a volcano.” Hikaru sat back down, all wide spread welcoming body language. “I think he wound up opening a store somewhere in Frisco.”

“A clothing shop.” Pavel added. “And I do not recall the volcano erupting. It was only spitting smoke. Dormant.”

“There was ash. Doesn’t ash mean it’s active?” Hikaru shrugged. “Anyway, you were on the other side of the planet.”

“That does not mean I do not know the facts.”

Hikaru stuck his tongue out at him. Pavel rolled his eyes.

“You guys are adorable.” Annie laughed. 

“Awesome.” Hikaru sighed. “See what you did?”

“No.” Pavel shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“I’ll explain later.”

Later was sardined together in Pavel’s bed. They’d shared smaller tents without a problem and Pavel had forgotten how pleasant it could be to have someone else in his space without having to initiate sex. Hikaru took the outside of the bed, old protective instincts too ingrained for Pavel to argue him out of. Once he would have taken offense, but now that he was old enough to know how young seventeen looked from the outside. 

“I don’t want her to think I’m cute, man.” Hikaru complained. “I want her to think I’m hot.”

“Do not break my roommate’s heart.” Pavel ordered, kicking Hikaru in the shin.

“I wouldn’t. Also ow. You need to clip your toenails.” There was a brief scuffle, ending with them both a little winded. “Do you really think I’d do that?”

“No. I know you would not.”

Silence fell and Pavel was nearly certain Hikaru had fallen asleep when he asked,

“Did you leave because of me?”

“What? Why would you think that?” Pavel sat up to stare at him.

“I don’t know. Only...you stopped talking to me after Abraxis. I thought…I don’t know. That you blamed me or something.”

“Sometimes,” Pavel searched the covers for Hikaru’s shoulder, gripping it hard, “you are very self-centered.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

“It was not you.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me then?”

“There were not words.” Pavel moved his hand so he could feel Hikaru’s heart beating through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. It was intimate, but Hikaru didn’t protest. He always let Pavel get away with things. “No way for me to explain how it was or how it happened. There was only before and after. I wanted to go back to before. Every time you asked me about it, it was after again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Pavel counted the even percussion beats under his palm. “None of it was your fault. Or mine. Or anyone’s, really. Not even the Abraxians.”

“You sound pretty Zen about it now.”

“I do not feel Zen about it.”

“Have you told Annie or Edris?”

“No. I do not intend to.” He glanced out the window where the last of the torches still flickered. “I need them not to know.”

“That whole before and after thing? That can’t be healthy.”

“It is not denial. I think about it every day, Hikaru. I cannot do otherwise.”

“Will you come back?”

Pavel didn’t answer, couldn’t let himself think about it. He watched the light flicker across the courtyard and listened to Hikaru’s breathing even out into sleep. 

Hikaru stayed for six days, learning to brew the strong chicory coffee that Annie and Pavel liked to drink in the morning. He spent two more nights in Pavel’s bed, before disappearing into Annie’s room. Pavel tried not to radiate disapproval, considering how happy they both seemed about it.

“Are you jealous, Pasha?” Edris asked during their early morning stretches.

“No.” They pushed up into a wide arch, Edris’ back bending an improbable amount. “I worry.”

“Annie can take care of her heart.” She kicked up into a handstand. “And your friend knows the rules of the game.”

“It is not a game.” He protested.

“Then you and Nick were doing something more than playing?”

“I have never thought of it as playing.” He frowned, making a weak attempt to follow her upward, winding up sprawled over the mat.

“Why not?” She watched him, upside down and enigmatic.

“Because there’s something sacred in it.”

“Maybe, but there are such things as sacred games.”

He mulled that one over for the bulk of the day.

“I have to head back to Frisco.” Hikaru admitted after a third round of tequila shots at Tom’s bar. “My family wants all the time they can get with me.”

“So soon?”

“I thought you only missed me a little.” Hikaru teased, but he put a hand around Pavel’s shoulders. “You can come to see me if you want. Or I can come back.”

“To us.” Pavel raised his glass. They downed the shot together, slamming the glasses back on the bar in unison.

He did not see Hikaru and Annie’s parting, but she lingered on the porch so long afterward that Pavel came out to get her. She was wrapped in a thick knitted blanket in Edris’ rocking chair. The sunset washed out the bright colors of her hair, leaving it a muddled brown.

“Did I ever tell you about my imzadi?” She asked when he sat down beside her.

“No. I do not know the word.”

“No, you wouldn’t, I guess.” She curled deeper into her blanket. “It means ‘one who first touched my soul’, if I had to translate it. For us, your first love is very important. Even if it is brief or ill-formed.”

“I can understand that.” He watched her carefully. “What was his name?”

“Umpila.” She said it like a talisman. “We came to Earth on the same transport. He was going to Harvard to learn Earth law and I was coming here to Tulane to study its art. When he sat down beside me on that shuttle, it was as if something long sleeping inside me woke up. We talked for the entire journey. When we arrived, he insisted on seeing me to my dorm before taking the trip to Boston. Everyday we talked over the comms, every weekend we travelled to see each other. Eventually we discussed marriage.”

“What happened?” He watched her face closely, but found no distress only a little sadness.

“He was offered a job back on Betazoid when he graduated. He had always intended to return home. I never did. I thought that he would fall in love with Earth as I had. Or at least that my being here would be enough.” She sighed. “It wasn’t, obviously. He returned home and everything between us just...dissolved. We speak once a year, on what was our anniversary.”

“Because you are imzadi?”

“Yes.” She smiled quickly at him, a flash of teeth as a reward for cleverness. “Because we are bound that way.”

“What do you say?”

“I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry.” She shrugged. “We are strangers in so many ways. There is little left to say. Your Hikaru doesn’t remind me much of him.”

“He’s not my Hikaru.” Pavel snorted. “Though you would not be the first to make that mistake.”

“Of course he is yours, just you are his. Not everything is romance.”

“I’m sorry if he hurt you.”

“He didn’t.” She smiled again, longer this time and less pained. “Only I got a little nostalgic saying goodbye to him. I was missing other goodbyes on this porch.”

“I told you not to worry.” Edris said from the doorway. “Now come inside, it’s about to rain.”

That night, Pavel ran his hands over a pile of books and came to rest on Auden’s broken spine.

“If you need me,” he tasted the words, rolled them around his mouth like a kiss. He couldn’t allow himself more than that, but for that moment it was comfort enough.


	4. Chapter 4

It rained for a week. Not the cold slanting rain of Russia or the warm mists of San Francisco, but heavy tropical storm rains that steamed the air and teased Pavel’s hair to new heights of frizzy curls.

“Haircut.” Annie decided on the sixth day. “I’ll do you, you do me.”

“I have never cut hair before.”

“Oh, I just mow mine pretty much. No skill required.”

She sat him down at the kitchen table, the air conditioning leavening the heat only a little, prickling over their skin. To distract himself from her handiwork, the fall of golden curls around his shoulders was disorienting, he talked.

“My father used to cut my hair.” He told her, flinging stray strands from his jeans. “When it grew long enough to cover my eyes. We would sit outside on the steps and he would tell me stories about my uncles. He always cut it very short.”

“What did you father do?”

“He designed bridges. Not large ones. Enough to span a highway.” Blueprints had scattered over their small living room like snow and Pavel had learned the first theories of math from their stiff white lines. “He seemed to like it.”

“He must have been very proud of you.”

“In his way.” The memory barely stung anymore, old and faded into obscurity. “He and my mother never wanted me to go to Starfleet. I was their only child and young.”

A flash of silver and a falling curl filled the silence. Taking pity, he answered her unvoiced question.

“We lived near a factory. A very safe one. It always met regulations. My mother even worked there for a time, overseeing distribution.” He picked up a lock of hair and twirled it idly between his fingers. “An angry ex-employee blew it up. I think he only meant to damage the factory, but it contained volatile chemicals. The debris went for miles and the fires burned for weeks. The fumes took them in their sleep.”

Her hand dropped his shoulder, squeezed slightly.

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen.” He had taken the call in one of those drab Starfleet rooms. What he remembered most was that when he answered, he had been laughing at one of Chandra’s odd jokes. The laughter had stiffened in his throat, choked him afterwards.

“I was twenty-two when my mother died.” Annie rubbed a thumb over the back of his neck, then set the blade there. “I talk to her all the time anyway. Things she would have liked to know about me. My father writes. He doesn’t like comms.”

“What about Edris?” He rubbed at his eyes which were suddenly itchy and a little moist.

“I think her entire family is still out there. Waiting for her to come to her senses and come home.”

“The Captain likes to say that we are his family. The bridge crew. Well. He does not say it quite that way and only after many drinks, but we all know what he means.” Pavel closed his eyes, the cold press of metal over his scalp grounding him.

“You don’t have to go back.” She pressed a quick kiss to his newly shorn crown. “But I think you should keep talking to them. They seem to like you very much.”

“I am the mascot.” He joked, running his fingers to dislodge the last stray hairs. “Their good luck charm.”

“Or maybe, you’re just theirs.”

They switched seats and very tentatively, he cut the first black tendril and watched it slide to the floor. He worked quickly, if not perfectly. Her multi-colored strands tangled with his own on the floor. When he finished and she surveyed herself in the mirror, she met his eyes with a wicked wink.

“I need fresh dye.” She turned and reached for him. “I bet your hair would take to it like a charm.”

He was about to protest, but he caught sight of himself in the mirror. The weeks of rich food and less intense exercise had filled out his cheeks. Nights of deep sleep serenaded by their saxophone ghost removed the dark circles from under his eyes. Annie’s careful artist hands had preserved his curls, but tailored them into something different, a little more mature.

For a single trembling instant, two tiny red lines cracked at the edge of his left eye. He gritted his teeth and blurted,

“Blue. Dark blue.” The lines faded as quickly as they’d come.

They did just the tips and he looked a little like a bright blue hedgehog when they were finished. Annie had gone a throbbing red, the sharp ridge she gelled up the center like a bloody fin.

“I’ve read that changing one’s hair is a human way of claiming control over their bodies.” Edris announced when they sat down to dinner, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Should I paint my head in solidarity?”

The first person to touch his new electric hair was Scotty.

He showed up in the first days of October, jostling up to Pavel when he was pouring over a shelf of naval history paperbacks in his favorite tucked up store. Pavel smelled him even before he registered his face. Scotty always smelled like the bowels of the ship, acid sharp and dusty. 

“Pavi!” Scotty pulled him into a viselike embrace, slapping his back enthusiastically. 

Once, enough years ago now that Pavel wasn’t embarrassed about it any longer, he’d mistook Scotty’s easy physical affection for something more. He’d never done anything about it, keeping it close like something jealous to hoard. If Scotty had noticed his evaluating looks and awkward coughs, he had never said anything. Over the years they had lapsed into the sort of mentor/student relationship that thrived on mutual respect and deep knowledge of their field. And Scotty had taken claim over Pavel’s body with casual platonic proprietary.

“Your hair!” Scotty tugged at one blue spike curl, then ran his fingers all the way over it with manic glee. “Look at you being rebellious. Are you planning a mutiny? Why pirates?”

“I was thinking of you.” Pavel admitted, pleased by the serendipity. The book in his hand was indeed about the Barbary pirates. “You would like these, I think. They’re about shipbuilding.”

“I don’t do well on water.” Scotty shrugged though he reached out to run a hand over the paperbacks. “Always thought it was interesting though. All that time spent seasoning the wood and a ship put together by your own hands.” 

“Does everyone know I’m here?” He wondered, watching Scotty squint at the titles.

“Sulu told me.” Scotty shrugged, pulling away to grab at Pavel’s wrist. “He promised me that if I visited, you would see to my stomach.”

“He is forever making promises others have to keep.”

Pavel took him to the cafe where he’d met Nick. The powdered sugar of the beignets proved to be Scotty’s bane, dusting him so liberally that he had to shower when he reached the house. Annie came home to find them in the kitchen, Scotty still only in a towel tucked around his waist while Pavel made them both omelettes.

“A pleasure to meet you.” Scotty held out a freshly scrubbed hand. “Hikaru raves about you.”

“That’s kind of him.” Annie grinned. “Tell him, he’s welcome any time as far as I’m concerned. “

“I take it you’re the one turning our Pavel into a peacock.” Maybe Scotty didn’t mean too, but there was a hard lean in his ‘our’. He sounded a little like a father on prom night.

“He’s a self-motivated one.” She took down plates and wordlessly pleaded until Pavel split his omelette in half, sliding it onto her plate. “I only provided the tools.”

“I am having my quarter life crisis.” Pavel said serenely as he served Scotty. “Nyota tells me it’s normal.”

“I doubt that girl has ever had a crisis. She always knows what she wants and where she’s going.” He made a soft noise of appreciation as he bit into first forkful. “Lad, when did you learn to cook?”

“Two months ago.” He smiled into his egg. “I had a feeling you’d come and the replicator only serves two normal appetites at a time.”

“Two?” Scotty turned in his chair to eye the machine. “Now that just isn’t right.”

Dinner was barely off the table before they had the guts of the machine spread across the floor.

“I’ll just leave you boys to it.” Annie disappeared in a trail of laughter.

“This is connected backwards.” Scotty waved the offending joint under Pavel’s nose.

“It is not.” He took the part and blew gently through the ducts. “It makes the right noise.”

“Then it’s marked wrong.”

“Blame the manufacturer.”

When Edris came home, the first thing she did was wet a napkin and run it over Pavel’s nose taking a thick smear of grease with it. He submitted without comment, not even really thinking about it until he caught Scotty’s startled expression.

“It’s good to meet you, Mr. Scott.” Edris bowed formally. 

“Nice to meet you.” He said back, still blinking a little. 

“If you’re reprogramming, could add a few more cold soups? I would be most appreciative.”

Then she stepped elegantly through the parts and out the door without so much as brushing a single component.

“Pavi,” Scotty turned to him slowly, “do you have a harem?”

“I do not.” He flushed red, embarrassment warring with irritation. “I am not attracted to women. That has not changed.”

“Then why are you letting them baby you? You hate it when people treat you like a kid.”

“They don’t.” He corrected immediately, reaching for a bit of circuitry. “They are different from humans. They treat me as they would treat equals on their own planet. You do not say Spock is treating Nyota poorly when he offers logic instead of affection. Only that that is his way.”

“Well Jim says-”

“The Captain says a lot of stupid things.” He snapped then steadied himself. “I am sorry. Only...”

“No, you’re right.” Scotty laughed. “Jim talks a lot of shite.”

They get the replicator back together and unlike Pavel’s competent, but low grade fix, Scotty rebuilt it from the ground up. It will produce anything now, including a credible synthahol. They drank it in chilled shot glasses to congratulate themselves.

“Should get the real stuff while I’m planetside.” Scotty muttered into the bottom of his second shot. “No sense drinking swill when I don’t have to.”

“They prefer rum here.” Pavel offered. “It is too sweet for me.”

“You were weaned on vodka and olive juice. Scotch is too sweet for you.”

The heat has broken enough that Pavel didn’t mind taking a sleeping bag onto the porch so that Scotty could have the bed. There wasn’t nearly enough alcohol to get him drunk, but it loosened up his bones and the saxophone player chimed a few blues notes that send him into an easy dreamless sleep.

“Good morning, Mr. Scott.” Edris chimed when Scotty stumbled into the kitchen in the morning. Pavel handed him a black cup of coffee, then turned back to the pot with barely concealed impatience to get his own.

“Morning.” A chair creaked, accepting Scotty’s weight.

“I thank you for your work on our replicator.” Edris’ steps barely made a sound. “I was wondering if you would come to our studio today. The air conditioner hasn’t behaved properly in weeks and we cannot get a repairman in. We would be happy to pay you, of course.”

“I don’t need money.” Scotty said gruffly. “I’ll come take a look as soon as I’ve got some food in me.”

“I could-” Pavel began, but the sharp spike of Edris’ elbow in his back stopped him. “-make some toast.”

“Don’t worry.” She told him when Scotty went to the bathroom. “I think he wants to know our intentions.”

“You are not my date and he is not my father.” 

“Pasha.” She rolled her eyes. “You worried him.”

Scotty was the least anxious person that Pavel had ever met. Even in crisis when Kirk screamed at him over the comms, Scotty just screamed back, exhilarated laughter ringing under his annoyance. Maybe he worried over the Enterprise sometimes, clucking at her warp drive and tangling his fingers in her wires, but he didn’t worry over people.

“I’m ready.” Scotty emerged from the bathroom, eyes seeking him out and one hand already reaching to cup his elbow. Edris smiled pointedly and Pavel frowned.

He watched them go with trepidation, before setting out for Annie’s studio and a day spent cutting blocks of clay. Scotty and Edris came home late, well on their way to merry from some obscure bar that served the rich syrup of Deltan liquor.

“She’s a real weird one.” Scotty confided in a sloppy whisper as Pavel led him to bed. “All legs and eyes that see into the back of your head, but she can match a man drink for drink! And dance a jig well as any natural born Scot.”

Edris laughed, a deep rolling thing. When Pavel returned, to the living room, she had pillowed her head on Annie’s lap.

“He knows how to have fun, your Scotty.” She grinned, a little ferally at him. “But he could not keep up with me.”

“Sacred games?” He asked, only a little nastily.

“Not with him. Not with any human.” She looked up at Annie, who flushed and looked away.

“What? Why?” He sat on their coffee table, watching her flushed scalp and the smooth looping movements of her fingers.

“Deltans...we have a certain expertise and way about us. When we take a human lover, we create addicts.” She snapped out the last word, the ds and t tight between her teeth. “They are ruined for anyone else. So here I am chaste unless another Deltan passes through.”

He opened his mouth to ask about other species, but Annie was still flushed red and her eyes averted to the ugly side table lamp. He took Edris’ hand instead.

“That must be hard.”

“Sometimes.” She rippled along the couch, something on a human that might have been a stretch. “I dream though. Vivid, beautiful dreams. That comforts me.”

“We should go to bed.” Annie cradled Edris’ head in her hands, lifting it upwards to slip away.

“I didn’t know.” He breathed into the empty space Annie left behind her. Edris’ eyes glued firmly to her retreating back.

“There’s nothing to know.” Edris exhaled, a punched out breath. “Go to bed, Pasha.”

He retreated out onto the porch and dragged his sleeping bag around him. The world seemed fragile and hushed that night. The air wavered, untouched by music.

In the morning, it was if none of it had happened. Scotty woke with a headache and red pinched eyes, muttering ugly things about Edris’ heritage as she moved serenely through the kitchen making a foul smelling porridge. 

Unlike Hikaru, Scotty didn’t have a tidy end to his vacation. He stayed another night in Pavel’s room and then migrated to a hotel along the river. He went back to San Francisco occasionally and without warning, but he was back for dinner every Friday night. Sometimes Pavel would catch him staring.

“What?” He would ask, a little playfully. “Is there something on my face?”

“No.” Scotty would shake his head with a laugh. “Just checking up.”

Pavel never dared ask him what it was he was looking for. Though he did wonder what his expression betrayed.


	5. Chapter 5

“The holidays are coming up.” Edris leaned back in her rocking chair, the windchimes swinging manically overhead.

“Do you celebrate them?” Pavel flipped through the glossy pages of an old magazine, looking for shades of pink for Annie’s latest decoupage monstrosity.

“Not as such. We don’t have holidays on Delta the way you do here. Annie likes to do a fusion of Thanksgiving and Donnanocha, sort of a gratefulness ritual. The local Betazoid community comes out in force and I flee.”

“Flee where?”

“To the islands. A day or two in the sun on the beach.”

He thought about the house filling with guests, food and laughter. He thought about the first November on the Enterprise, a mish-mash of holidays that ran until the end of January. A sharing of culture and loyalty that left everyone buoyed up. And all the ones there after that were a little less shining and a little more melancholy over the things that were lost, the crew members not present to raise a glass.

“Can I come with you?”

The sand was white on St. Martinique and the drinks strong. Pavel called Annie the night before her celebration and she laughed off his apologies again.

“It’s insane here. There’re already three people crammed in your room and more coming in the morning. Stay, get a tan.”

He stayed and dug his toes into the sand, the ocean lapping warm around his ankles. Edris spread out on the beach from early morning until the late evening, absorbing the sun like she might photosynthesize.

“Deltans evolved from plants.” She lied.

“You must have been a very strange tulip then.” He teased.

A beautiful man with liquid eyes and soft hands danced with him every night at the bar, but Pavel never took him back to his empty room with its clean white sheets. Instead, he walked along the water and tried to identify the constellations that he had learned about on the other side of the world.

The short vacation from his longer vacation left him itchy and restless. Not just because of the terrible sunburn that bridged his shoulders where he hadn’t been able to reach with sunblock.

“Edris could have done it.” Annie tsked, rubbing across his shoulders with a towel, the dried skin falling blissfully away.

“It’s fine.” He hadn’t wanted her touch then, her graceful hands smoothing cream over his skin. He’d wanted to exist alone for a time, untouched.

“Are you coming to the studio this morning?”

“No,” he slid out from under her hands, “to the library.”

He walked the marble floors and arrived in front of the search terminal. The building was silent and cool. Trailing fingers over the keyboard, his breath caught in his throat. His heart began to pound and the first, noxious spidery red fragments cracked at the edges of his vision. His hands fell limp against his sides and a waiting patron coughed behind him. 

“Sorry.” He mumbled and moved out of the way.

He walked, aimlessly, the streets familiar to him now as the corridors of the Enterprise. He passed his usual coffee shop, the bookstore and the graveyard that Hikaru had visited with him. Winding through the streets, his mind buzzed and hummed with nothing, a forced reign of white noise.

A woman dropped her groceries in front of him on the sidewalk and he stooped to pick them up, handing her oranges and bruised apples. She gave him a grateful smile and an orange. He peeled it as he walked, the rind getting under his nails and the smell lingering in his nose. 

His comm buzzed irritably in his pocket and he picked it up without checking.

“Hello.”

“Chekov? It’s Jim.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, the peeled orange still in his hand.

“Captain.” He acknowledged.

“The paperwork is due in two months.” It’s as gentle as Pavel’s ever heard him, low and coaxing. “I can string them out about a few weeks more after that, but then I have to know.”

“Oh.”

“Look, I’m sorry if I was rough with you that day. You looked...you scared me. You scared everyone.” 

“That was not my intention.” He said stiffly.

“Yeah, I know, but...” Kirk snorted. “Look we all know I suck at this. I don’t know how to say I’m sorry for Abraxis. I’m not even sure you want me to.”

“I do not.”

“Right. So. I want you back, you know that. But everyone keeps reminding me that you have a choice. You can stay land bound if you want. You can take another mission somewhere else where they can put your massive brain to better use.” A sigh fluttered over the channel, slight, but unmistakable. “I’d miss you. Not because I want my original team, though we are awesome and should always stick together for the good of the universe. But, you know, because you’re my friend.”

“Am I?” Pavel’s hands had tightened into fists without his permission.

“How can you ask me that?” Kirk’s voice cracked in aggravation. “Jesus, kid. You know I’d die for you.”

“You would die for anyone.” He snapped, harsh and exhausted. “That is your duty, Captain. You were my leader and I followed you, but I never deluded myself that we were friends.”

“That’s really fucking unfair-”

Pavel hung up, swallowing back acid that clamored in his throat. He wasn’t even sure why he was so mad with the Captain. He was a good man and he’d never failed to be anything, but straightforward and as kind as he could as afford to be to Pavel.

He switched the comm back on and punched in a code.

“Where are you lad?” Scotty answered immediately. “Your girl Annie’s been bothering me all morning trying to hunt you down.”

“I am...” He looked for a street sign. “…far from home. The Captain called me.”

Scotty swore, a foul tangled mess of vowels and choking noises, “I told him to leave you be.”

“The contract is coming up.” Pavel tried to keep his tone even, but knew he was failing. “He has a right to ask.”

“Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t.” Scotty groaned. “But I’m going to kick his arse to Wednesday anyway.”

“I can handle him myself.” Pavel insisted, started to walk in the vague direction of home. “I only...”

He had wanted to be comforted. It chafed at him, all these years of resisting it, but everyone needed solace sometimes. Maybe Scotty was right and he did tolerate it from Annie and Edris for some other reason than cultural differences. 

“Come back to the house. I’ll meet you there.”

Scotty was waiting right on the porch steps, a tall bottle of vodka chilled and waiting on the rail. Instead of pouring him one right away though, he pulled Pavel into a rough hug. He didn’t thump him on the back or push him off. It was just one warm long embrace and Pavel had to cough to cover up the sob that tried to take him off guard.

“Drink this.” Scotty said at last, pouring him both shots. He watched closely as Pavel threw them both back. “Now sit.”

Pavel sat. The liquor warmed his stomach and eased the shaking of his hands. 

“I think that it’s time.” Scotty poured him another shot, a smaller one and handed it over gravely. “You need to talk to someone about it.”

“No.” He protested, throwing back the clear, betraying liquid. 

“You’re trying to heal here and I’m good with that, but it’s like this...” Scotty fished for something and then threw up his hands. “I don’t know. You can’t keep it in forever. You’ll become a bitter old man like me.”

“There are worse things.”

Scotty started at him over the rim of a glass, “You don’t have to tell me. But you have to tell someone.”

“I made my official report.” He held the small glass between his hands. “It was accurate and thorough. I attended my mandatory counseling and my mental health was found satisfactory.”

“We all know you bluffed that poor intern.” Scotty smiled a little as though the idea made him proud. “You’re good at that when you have a mind.”

“Starfleet says I am well enough to go back into space.”

“They would send pigs up there right now if they thought they could do a functional job. Did you know that fifteen percent of this year’s graduating class will leave as officers? There’s a war brewing and desperation reeking out of the Admirals’ pores.”

“If you are implying I am not fit to serve-”

“I’m implying that maybe you need a little more help.” Scotty screwed the cap back on the vodka. “Annie said you went to the library this morning. Why not the bookstore?”

Pavel looked longingly at the vodka, but set down his glass and sighed.

“Before we left, it was implied that the Abraxians still wanted to trade with the Federation.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “They have rare minerals on their planet and with the proper safety protocols, there is no good reason to decline them. I wanted to ensure that my report was properly acknowledged.”

“You could have done that on your PADD. Hell, you’ve got more clearance on that than the library.”

Pavel rubbed his hands against his jeans, watching the few passing vehicles.

“I do not want the memory touching my things.” He finally admitted though it sounded even crazier out loud than it had in his head. “It cannot have any more of me.”

Scotty put his arm around Pavel’s shoulders and squeezed hard. Hesitantly, Pavel put his head on Scotty’s rounded shoulder and closed his eyes against the too bright sun. 

“Hey,” Annie said softly some immeasurable time later, “you alright?”

“No,” he admitted hoarsely into the scratchy fabric of Scotty’s shirt, “but I am working on it.”


	6. Chapter 6

In December, the temperature finally became something nearly like chilly. Once, Pavel had been inured to the extremes of cold. He fondly remembered the seemingly endless snow piling up around his childhood home until the world was an unbroken field of white outside his window. He walked to school layered like an onion and oblivious to the numbness of his nose.

Too many years in San Francisco and then the false static environment of the Enterprise had thinned his blood and tolerance. He spent his days wrapped in one of Annie’s old jackets. It was lined with fleece and the once caramel color was dotted with hardened glazes and clay. He liked the collar where years of settling around Annie’s neck had picked up her essential vanilla scent. 

Sometimes he spent whole days in bed, jacket on, blanket pulled up to his waist and his nose in a book. If they had no pressing business, Annie or Edris would join him and they would drink tea or read aloud to each other. It recaptured some of the simple happiness he had had in the summer months. 

But the worming thread of unease never quite retreated. It slithered into the back of his brain and soured pleasures. Every night now, he touched the book of poetry with its promising slip of paper and went to bed with a sigh on his lips.

“You should come visit.” Hikaru wheedled over a vid screen, hair in disarray and a laugh tugging on his mouth. “Some of the Beta bridge crew have started a mathletes game. It’s ridiculous and I need you or we’ll lose miserably.”

“I will relish your defeat.” Pavel replied haughtily. “After all the trouble you have given me over my formulas.”

“Dude.” Hikaru pouted. “Uncool.”

“I am, as you have pointed out while I am working on said formulas, very uncool.”

He thought about it. It would just be a few days, sleeping on Hikaru’s couch and eating too much of the Sulu matriarch's home cooking. Maybe he could fit in a visit with Nyota and-

The paths splintered red before his eyes, a million possibilities that hit him low in the stomach and nearly blinded him.

“Pavel?” Hikaru leaned towards the screen. “You alright?”

“It’s nothing.” He clenched his hands into fists, forcing deep even breaths. There had been no attack for so long that he had started to think that it was over. That maybe through inaction he had been healed. “Just a headache.”

“You sure?”

“Oh...” He couldn’t stop the fracturing. There were only more and more until his entire vision went red. Vaguely, he heard Hikaru’s voice, but he was lost.

The next thing he was solidly aware of was a hand in his hair and wave of calm that pushed against the panic.

“Annie.” He clung to her like a child. “I thought I was safe.”

“You are safe.” She clung right back. “Shush, Pasha. Be calm. All is well.”

He kept his eyes screwed shut, counting his breaths and thinking about nothing at all. When the worst was past, he pulled away from her in stages until he could look into her concerned eyes.

“You are a very strong empath.” He ventured.

“Yes.” She withdrew the last of her calm from him and he was relieved that his own defenses held. “I don’t like it. When I came to Earth and it was so...quiet. Humans do feel very loudly, but they aren’t feeling AT me. It’s a pulse and gone. They don’t expect me to shove myself at them or to heal them. I miss it sometimes, but most of the time it’s a great relief.”

“Thank you, for breaking your fast for me.”

“Oh, it’s different with friends.” She took his hand and ran a light finger over the pathways of his palm. “You will have to call Hikaru back.”

“Not now.”

“No, of course not.”

The light filtered dimly through the window, a reminder that it wasn’t yet evening though he felt utterly fatigued. 

“We landed on a planet called Abraxis.” The words came to his tongue bitterly and with considerable effort, but he couldn’t afford to think about it. If he thought about it, the red lines would return, “The people there...they were like many other people we met. Isolated, differently evolved and stilted. But overall not threatening. Many of us went back and forth to the surface once diplomatic talks began. It was like shore leave. There was an ocean the color of rubies.

“I went for a swim on my own. There were other officers there, on the shore, but I went into the water alone. Others had waded in before. It seemed safe.” He concentrated on the light touch of Annie’s fingers on his palm, trying to remain as detached as he had when he had given his report to Spock or the Fleet psychiatrist. It didn’t work. “When I had gotten about fifty feet from the shore, I started to drown.”

“Undertow?” She asked without much hope.

“No.” He laughed bitterly. “The Abraxians. The people we had met, the cities we saw...that was all a psychic projection. A false world built to soothe us into thinking we were meeting the familiar. There is nothing human about the Abraxians. They aren’t malicious or evil. They know nothing of those concepts. They live deep in the ocean and while they feel, it is nothing to our understanding of feelings.”

“And they pulled you under?”

“They wanted to know my mind. All our minds, but I was the first to come near enough. They are patient. Perhaps they would have waited decades for someone to dare the waters. I relieved them of that burden.” He closed his eyes, saltwater still lingering in his nose at the back of his throat. “They tore through my brain, peered into every neuron and cell. I relived every clear memory I had, but not in any meaningful order. I tasted everything I had ever eaten, smelled everything I had ever taken note of. And it hurt. Oh God, it hurt.”

He took in a wrenching breath and her grip on his hand tightened. 

“You don’t have to-”

“I do.” With great effort, he managed a weak half-smile. “They knew...they only came to understand pain through me. When they understood what they had done, they tried to fix it. Piecing me back together and they got it nearly right. I washed up back on shore and they used my voice to work out a treaty with the Captain.”

“He did business with them when they made you a puppet?”

“He had no choice.” Pavel did genuinely believe that. He did. “They might have killed me otherwise. How was he to know?”

“I would have panic attacks too if that happened to me. That’s fucking awful.”

“They’re not panic attacks. I wish they were. It was the only thing I could think of that the counselor would accept.” He dug his fingernails into his palm, the bite of them keeping him in the story. “The Abraxians don’t exist in a single point in time. I am not even sure that they are many. It may be a single entity, thoughts all overlapping through the space-time continuum. They see all possible futures because they exist in them all simultaneously.

“When they took me, remade me, they had no other blueprint to work with but themselves. They put me back together as best they could, but they shoved that timeless part of themselves into me.” The paths had blistered him then, an almost constant barrage of information. “When I make decisions, I can see all the possibilities. All the outcomes. The human mind was not made to handle such things. I learned to turn it off, so that I did not have to see them every time I had to choose between eggs or toast. But the big choices, the ones that dictate the path of my life... I have not had to make one since I came here. I had hoped...”

“That it would just disappear.” She drew him into another hug. “I can understand that.”

“Yes,” he still felt the soothing after effect of her overpowering calm, “I think you can.”

She carded her hand through his hair and he closed his eyes until the inevitable occurred to her.

“Pavel...when you’re out there on the Enterprise, you make those kinds of decisions. You plot courses every day; get caught in life and death decisions all the time. How did you cope?”

“I did not have to.” It hurt more to admit than anything else, a barb pulled through his skin. “It was only four months before the end of the mission. I was on mandatory sick leave for one of those and the rest was getting us home. That was simple.”

“That’s why you don’t want to go back.”

“I do want to go back. More than anything.” He felt the hot sting rising in his throat again. For the first time in months, he let himself really feel the loss. “You do not know how much I want it. I love the Enterprise as deeply as Scotty does. It is my home, my work. Everything.” 

“Why didn’t you tell any of them?”

“For a long time, I simply could not. Every time I wanted to tell someone, I would see...it was a decision. It opened thousands of paths to me.”

“But you told me just now...”

“Because I did not allow myself to choose. If I stop and consider...” He swallowed. He could hear his accent thickening, all the years of ruthless suppression failing under assault of pure grief. “Once I had learned to manage it a little, I no longer wanted to tell them. Always I have been the baby, the one to be protected. Sometimes I hated it, sometimes I liked it. But it was always true. If they knew what it had done to me, how broken I am...I cannot be the cause of their guilt or feel the weight of their pity. Worse, I cannot bare their disappointment.”

“So you ran.”

“I have always been good at running. Not that it helped. They found me.” He shuddered. “And it has been so hard. I cannot think about going with them. I have been so good. So careful not to even try to think. Then Hikaru offers to let me stay with him for only a few days. I love San Fransisco, but if I even think about going...”

He could see the spidery lines creep into his vision just talking about it. Ruthlessly, he blanked his mind, concentrated on the here and now.

“That means it would be a significant trip?”

“Yes. It would lead to me making some decision.”

“But you don’t know what it is?”

“That is the trouble. I do. All of the whats. So many things make differences in what we do, how we move forward. I can see all the possibilities until they run so close together that it is useless. I see the future, but it lacks meaning.”

“So maybe you should go then.”

“Stop.” He pleaded with her, the lines pushing back in. “Don’t make me think of it.”

“I don’t understand.” She sighed in exasperation. “Does nothing here have meaning for you?”

“It means so much.” He sputtered. “How could you even...it’s only that there is no pressure here.”

“Because we don’t matter.”

“No! Annie. The last time I had an attack was when I was deciding whether or not to move in with you. It has so much meaning to me. It has been a safe haven. I can breath easy here and you and Edris, you have helped me so much.”

“I’m sorry.” She held his hand back hard. “I’m being selfish. I want to mean something to you. You’ve meant a lot to me.”

“Not selfish, never that.”

“What are two carrying on about?” Edris leaned heavily in the doorway, draped in silky blue cloth that served her as a nightgown.

“Can I...” Annie glanced at him.

“Please. She should know and I cannot say it all again.”

He didn’t really listen as Annie told the story to Edris. He felt emptied out, hollow and tired. Next to him, Annie kept radiating comfort and calm. He wasn’t sure she even intended it.

“La, Pavel,” Edris’ cool hand passed over his forehead, “that such things should happen to your lovely mind.”

“It is fine.” He muttered, pressing a little into her touch. “I can withstand it.”

“Sleep.” She decreed, chivvying him under the covers. “It will look better in the morning.”

He wasn’t sure when they left, but he knew they were both there when he fell asleep. When he woke, there was another body in his bed.

“Hey.” Hikaru touched his face, his arm. “You ok?”

“Yes.” Pavel grabbed at his hand. “Annie called you.”

“Yeah, man. Don’t be pissed. She sorta told me everything.”

“Oh.” He let his head fall back on his pillow. “She should not have.”

“Yeah, I figured, but you freaked us both out. Even Edris looked kind of worried and I didn’t think she could do that.” Hikaru flicked him on the nose. “You suck.”

“Owch!”

“You thought I would just start eating my heart out over it? I would have gotten you help.”

“I had help.” The Fleet counselor, who hadn’t bothered to scratch the surface, but still, that had been help. “I did not want you to hurt.”

“That is so fucked up.” Hikaru got up on his knees. “You’re the best friend I have out there and you just let yourself bleed internally to spare my precious feelings? Goddamnit, I could punch you.”

“Please don’t.” He scrambled to sit up to break the height disadvantage. 

“Tell me you at least talked to Spock about it. I mean he’s all about the mental stuff.”

“He would have taken me off of active duty. I did not want it listed so officially.” He swallowed. “There is no mental bandage he can put on this, no meditation he can teach me. Vulcans don’t see the future. None of the known races can. It is unique to the Abraxians. And now to me.”

“But you don’t know that! You never asked!”

“I can’t ask!” He shouted back, frustrated now. “I cannot even think of it without collapsing! This is who I am now. I take steps to fix it and I have an attack. The only way to control it is to not act. To wake up and follow my routine and pray that no one asks me a difficult question.”

“No.” Hikaru growled. “I don’t accept that.”

Pavel watched him storm out of the room, listened to his footsteps retreat down the hallway and the slam of the front door. Weary despite the long night’s sleep, he fell back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

“He’ll be back.” Edris announced from his door. “Get up now. There’s fresh orange juice.”

He dressed sluggishly, barely managed to drag himself into the kitchen. He took a seat next to her at the table and felt the weight of her scrutiny.

“Am I a coward?” He asked her, the tang of the juice wiping the night’s cotton from his mouth.

“No more than any other entity alive. No one wants to hurt.” She stretched out her leg, the one that had been so stiff and wounded when he met her and propped it into his lap. “Cowardice and bravery mean very little in the everyday scheme of things.”

“I really thought I would get better.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I thought I need time. Some quiet and then I would heal.”

“You are. You did.” She flexed her toes into his stomach. “You’ve come so far from that first day. You looked so lost then.”

“Thank you. For letting me stay here.” He gave into the silent request and started to rub her foot. “I needed a safe place to land.”

“You’re welcome.” She sighed, pushing into his sure touch. “You’re always welcome.”

Pavel wasn’t surprised when Hikaru returned soon after with an annoyed looking Spock in tow and Nyota trailing after them both, forehead tightened with worry. Quietly, he said goodbye to the peace of mind he’d built for himself and prepared for the worst.


	7. Chapter 7

“I cannot meld with someone in this state.” Spock was saying calmly.

Pavel heard him dimly over the roar of blood in his ears. The paths divided before him, a blur of sticky red possibilities. Each time Spock or Hikaru approached him now, they flared up further. No amount of steady breathing or Annie’s projected calm helped. It was as if the dam he had spent months building had finally burst.

“We can’t leave him like this!” Hikaru shouted back. Nyota said something soft in return and the conversation died away.

“Pasha,” Annie said loudly in one ear as if she knew she had to make herself heard over the rush of information pounding through him, “what makes the futures go away? What makes them stop? You had to have figured out a way.”

“Choosing.” He managed to force out. “It’s too hard too when it’s like this though, too many things to....”

“Spock wants to help you. Will you let him meld with you?”

He didn’t think it was possible for more paths to form, already they blanketed his vision, but with Annie’s question, they managed it. Bright lights sparked in front his eyes.

“Listen to me.” Hikaru was in his other ear now. “Choose. You can do it.”

Underneath the pain and the lights, he heard them both. Something traitorous and hopeful rose in his chest.

“Yes.” He ground out. “Yes, I will accept the meld.”

The paths were slower to retreat then before. They collided together reluctantly. He kept his mind focused on his decision. Yes, he would allow Spock to help. Yes. Yes.

“Oh.” The last of the pathways finally faded away, but his heart still knocked erratically in his chest. “I am not well.”

“Yeah, I think we all know that.” Hikaru poked him in the side. “Jesus, you scared me. Again.”

“I cannot help it.” He dropped his gaze to his lap. 

“If you’re going to do the meld, it needs to be now.” Annie’s pressing calm finally penetrated and Pavel took a few deep relaxed breaths. “I can’t hold back the panic much longer.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t having panic attacks?” Nyota asked, huddled in the doorway.

“You want someone to go digging around in his head.” Annie stood stiffly. “It’s reliving the trauma. Of course, he’s going to panic. I would too.”

“I will not do as the Abraxians would.” Spock got down on his knees. “You know that, Mr. Chekov.”

“I know.” Pavel raised his chin, looked into Spock’s frank dark eyes. “Please. Now.”

“The rest of you should wait outside.” Spock didn’t look away, even as Hikaru protested and was dragged away by Annie.

“I do not think this will be helpful.” Pavel warned as Spock’s hand finally rose to touch his face.

“We will see. My mind to your mind.”

It was nothing like the Abraxians. Spock slid into Pavel’s thoughts with ease, bringing with him a cool balm of carefully constructed thoughts. The mathematics of his mind meshed easily with Pavel’s and between them they explored the perfect crystalline chain of Warp Theory. 

_I must go deeper._ Spock warned when the last of the numbers settled into place.

Underneath the surface, Pavel’s mind roiled like the ocean that had robbed him of himself. He reluctantly sank into it, following Spock to the depths. At the bottom, there was a fissure that vomited up lava. He knew that it wasn’t really there. It was a metaphor, something he could understand. He wondered if Spock saw it too or if it translated to something different for him.

The fissure wasn’t very deep or wide though there was evidence in the scarred terrain that it was once larger. 

_You must invoke your ability._ Spock said, his entire mind wrapped around Pavel’s like a shield. _That I may see the effects._

_It is not an ability._ He projected back, the thought tagged with all the fear and pain of the last day and maybe all the days before it.

_Will you come back to the Enterprise?_ The question was cruel, but necessary and Pavel couldn’t bring himself to resent it.

From the inside, the terrible red lines didn’t cloud his vision. They came from all directions, spewed from the fissure in the ground or rained down from the unseen sky. They rushed towards Pavel until he was sure they would pierce him like arrows.

Nothing happened. Spock with one firm thought held them all at bay. For the first time, Pavel could look at them without scalding pain or fear. He could see himself in hundred different places, in some of them he wore the uniform, in others he did not. Each possible future spelled out scene by scene and he could follow them all to the end of himself.

_I would not have thought it possible._

Pavel could sense Spock’s unease. How he had come to the reasonable conclusion that Pavel was suffering from post-traumatic stress. But the paths were undeniable in this form.

_Can you stop it?_ He asked though he already knew the answer.

_No. This is a part of you. I could no more remove it than I could your name._ There was a hesitation and Spock’s thoughts quaked through the water. _You could come to control them. You have already made strides to that end. Diligent work with someone more expert than I, could help._

_I will do this. Whatever is required,_ It was the first real hope he allowed himself to feel. _Who?_

_I will locate a proper healer. I am not sure I can repress it for much longer. Is there anything else you would have while you are still master of your thoughts?_

Pavel went still. He hadn’t even had the luxury to contemplate what he might choose if he could still choose things for months. He had gone with the flow, made as few decisions as possible and retreated into passivity at any sign of real change or the first encroaching red line. He had had to be ruthless and think of nothing that could change his circumstances.

And yet, as soon as Spock offered, he knew exactly what to say. For the first time in nearly a year, he thought of capable hands on his and a voice like molasses. Their flirtation was a long one, a systematic pursuit on Pavel’s part that spanned months. He had worn him down with smiles, soft, fleeting touches and long conversations over a bottle of whiskey. Maybe without Abraxis, they would have become lovers. Instead, Pavel had had to withdraw. There were too many possibilities clinging to the man, too many decisions to be made. It had hurt even to look at him in the end.

Then just before they disembarked, Pavel had been cornered and a slip of paper pressed into his hand. No words, only that silent plea and offer rolled into one.

_Leonard._ He pushed the name hard at Spock, in case the rest of it couldn’t get through. Already the lines were shaking, dividing further and he didn’t know how long Spock could hold them back. _Call him. I cannot. You can. Explain to him. I must have hurt him terribly, withdrawing and never being able to tell him why._

_I will have Nyota contact him. I must break the meld now. Prepare yourself._

The instant that he was alone again behind his own skull, the future crashed down on him and Pavel passed into the forgiving darkness. 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” Hikaru muttered in his ear, some unnamable amount of time later.

“Something has died in my mouth.” Pavel complained. 

“Seriously, you keep passing out and I’m going to start carrying smelling salts.”

“Why do you think you are funny? Who tells you these lies?”

“I’m hurt, man, truly.”

With reluctance, Pavel opened his eyes. He was on his bed, fully dressed. Hikaru had pulled a chair in from the kitchen, cramming it between the bed and the wall. He was holding Pavel’s hand painfully tight and his eyes were red rimmed.

“All will be well.” He assured him, returning the death grip on his hand. 

“Really?” Hikaru sounded young just then, younger even than Pavel.

“I think so.”

“You...you sound like yourself when you say things like that.” A long sigh escaped from Hikaru as if he had been holding his breath. “Nothing gets you down.”

“There is hope.” And Pavel can feel it now. He can’t think about it, but he can relish the warm promise. “The world is a good place today.”

“I did the right thing then? Getting Spock?”

“Yes, yes.” Pavel laughed. “You did.”

“Because I thought I’d fucked up there for a bit. You were kind of a mess.”

“I have been a mess for...nearly a year.” Had it been that long? It must be when he thinks in terms of stardates. “I just hid it very well.”

“Not that well.” Hikaru scrubbed his free hand over his face. “I have to tell the others you’re up. You ok to talk to them?”

“Yes.” He swung his legs over the bed. “I want to shower first though. I smell.”

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything...”

“Get out of my room.” Pavel commanded and Hikaru left, laughing a little.

The shower pounded some more awareness back into Pavel. He was careful not to think about what might happen over the next days and weeks. Instead he washed his hair, changed into clean clothes and drifted into the kitchen. Annie, Nyota, Spock and Hikaru were gathered around the kitchen table while Edris sat on the counter, swinging her legs idly. They all looked up when he came in and he flushed under their scrutiny. 

“Hello.” He mumbled, pushing a strand of blue and blond hair out of his eyes.

“You must tell him.” Spock said firmly and Nyota shot him an annoyed look.

“Give the boy two seconds to relax.” She snapped.

“Now I will not be able to relax unless you tell me.” Pavel crossed his arms over his chest. “Is it about the healer?”

“No. I have located two people who may be helpful.” Spock looked away from Nyota, the tips of his ears faintly green. “They both wish to meet with you to determine the problem. I took the liberty of scheduling the appointments.”

It was a diplomatic way of saying ‘I took away your choice’ and Pavel was pathetically grateful for that small courtesy.

“Thank you. So what is it then?” He turned to Nyota.

“It’s Dr. McCoy.” She looked away from him. “I explained as best I could. He was...I didn’t know you two were close.”

“No one did.” He leaned against the door frame, legs a little weak. “We were only talking. Negotiating it felt like sometimes. Three steps forward, two steps back.”

“You and the Doc?” Hikaru looked between Pavel and Nyota. “Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it was private.” Pavel said quietly. “Because I had not felt that way before and it felt a little sacred.”

“Imzadi.” Annie supplied and he smiled at her.

“Yes, maybe.”

“What’s imzadi?” Hikaru’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ll explain it to you later.” Annie rubbed a reassuring hand over Hikaru’s shoulders. “It’s nothing bad.”

“So that is all?” Pavel asked Nyota.

“No. That’s not it. He was furious. You know how he can be...apparently better than any of the rest of us might. I told him he shouldn’t come. That you couldn’t see him.” She snorted. “I should have known it wouldn’t work. That man is like a force of nature when gets his mind set on something.”

“He’s coming?” Pavel dug his fingers into the woodwork. “Here?”

“You don’t have to see him.” Edris said coolly, cutting through the rising tension. “Stay in your bedroom and we will make sure he sees reason.”

“When?” He demanded.

“I didn’t give him the address.” Nyota assured him. “And I told everyone else who knows not to tell him. So it should take him awhile to find the place.”

A knock, loud and condemning, railed at the front door.

“Unless Jim has broken his promise in an attempt to ‘do the right thing’.” Spock said with a small frown.

“I am going to kill that man.” Standing up swiftly enough from the table that she knocked over a chair, Nyota stomped towards the front door. “I hope you’re ready to be Captain, Spock.”

She opened the door with a tight look about her mouth. Pavel watched from down the hall, Annie, Edris and Hikaru clamoring at his back. Only Spock stayed seated, calmly sipping a glass of water.

“Where is he?”

Leonard’s voice, all raw honey and whiskey, shot through Pavel like electricity. 

“Leonard, you can’t see him.” Nyota planted her feet firmly in front of the door. “I thought I made that clear.”

“And I thought it made it clear to you that I’m going to, weird fits or not. I deserve some answers, goddamnit.” He stepped inside, out of the sun and now Pavel could see him clearly. Which meant Leonard could see him. The intensity of his gaze stole the breath from Pavel’s lungs. With a painfully rough gasp, Leonard’s lips parted to say only,

“Darlin’.” 

For a single, frozen horrible second, Pavel waited for the red lines to crack at his vision. They didn’t come. Because, he realized with a soaring joy, in every possible future Pavel did what he was about to do.

He broke from the doorway, everything else faded to the background as unimportant. Vaguely, he was aware of pushing pass Nyota, she let out a small sound of surprise. Without hesitation or room for thought, he surged forward to pull Leonard into his arms. Once, he would have been dwarfed by the other man, but time has been kind and Pavel was nearly the same height now if not as broad. 

“I am so sorry.” Pavel tightened his hold until Leonard’s arms went around him. They were strong, settling over him and binding him tight. Leonard smelled of recycled air, evidence of the shuttle ride that had brought him here. Under that though, there was the mellow cedar aftershave that Pavel found deeply comforting.

“God, Darlin’.” Leonard buried his face in Pavel’s neck. “You have no idea. I thought...”

“I had to, I’m sorry, there was nothing I could do,” he was aware that his sentences were shattering into meaningless fragments, but couldn’t stop them from tumbling out anyway, “it nearly killed me when we were so close and I had to...”

“I told you to call if you needed me.” Leonard pulled back a little, enough for Pavel to see the hurt writ large on his face.

“I needed you.” Pavel’s throat yielded up a pained sound. “Every day. I wanted you here with me, but I couldn’t. If I even thought of it. If I thought of you. You’re in too many of my futures.”

“I got no goddamn idea what that even means.” 

“The Abraxians.” Pavel started then stopped. “Nyota told you.”

“Yeah, she told me.” Tentatively, Leonard swept the pad of his thumb over Pavel’s temple. “I knew something was wrong, but I was too much of a stubborn fool to make you talk about it. Thought maybe you’d finally got me where you wanted and decided to ditch me.”

“I would never.” Pavel eyes widened in horror. “I wanted you so badly. How could you even think-”

“The evidence was pretty clear. But you’re right. I shoulda known you wouldn’t. You never were that kind.” The stroke became a hand cupping his face. “I should’ve pushed you. You chased me to the ends of the Earth and I just let you go.”

“Yes.” Pavel let himself feel the pain he’d been denying. “You gave up on me.”

“So we both got something to be sorry for. Think maybe they could cancel each other out?”

“Don’t ask me.” Pavel snapped the first tendril of red cracking at the corner of his eye. “I can’t choose. Can’t decide. Not now, not this.”

“Then how about this then.” Two fingers slid under his chin, tilting his face upwards. With great care, Leonard kissed him.

They had never kissed before. The months of courting had led them close, but Pavel had been convinced that slow and steady would win the race. He’d never pushed physically, just set about methodically proving that they were compatible. Only the smoldering looks that Leonard had shot at him when he thought Pavel wasn’t looking had given him hope.

It was good. Deliciously good. Leonard kissed like he did everything: with furious passion tempered by extraordinary patience. It lasted long languid seconds, waking a world of sensation beneath Pavel’s skin. When Leonard finally pulled it away, it was only to dot smaller, more reverent kisses over Pavel’s cheeks, chin and neck.

“Uhhh...” Someone behind them said and Pavel closed his eyes in a sudden rush of embarrassment.

“I would not advise continuing at this point, Doctor.” Spock said. “Mr. Chekov cannot currently give meaningful consent.”

“Because of his visions?”

“They aren’t visions.” Pavel frowned, not releasing his hold. “They’re possibilities.”

“No matter how you define them, they overwhelm him at times of meaningful decisions. It would seem that you are often a source of those decisions. Therefore, to press him at this time would be a distinctly unwise.”

“He just told me to fuck off, didn’t he?” Leonard asked Pavel.

“He is not wrong.” Pavel equivocated. “But it is so very good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Darlin’.” He frowned. “I should-”

“Don’t leave.” Annie pushed through the crowd in the hall. “This is my house, Dr. McCoy and we’d be honored to have you as a guest. Pavel is going to start meeting with a specialist, help him get better and I think he needs all the friends he can get right now.”

“Uh, thanks. I didn’t catch your name.”

“I’m Annie.” She pointed down the hall. “And that’s Edris.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss. Annie.” With the good manners that surfaced so rarely, Leonard held out his hand to shake. “You’ve got a lovely home. And I guess it’s you I should be thanking for this one looking better than when I last saw him.”

“Wasn’t us.” She grinned. “He’s been healing up all by himself. Guess all he needs now is an extra push and some expert medical attention.”

“Annie!” Pavel knew he was flushing scarlet now.

“Sorry, Pasha.” She laughed. “I can’t help it. It’s a good day, you know?”

And despite the fear, the blacking out and the sure knowledge that no matter what he’s stuck with his crazy future vision, Pavel had to agree that it was a very good day.


	8. Chapter 8

“And breath out.” Oulana’s steady voice commanded and Pavel diligently breathed out. “Good. How do you feel?”

“Nauseous. Dizzy.”

“Any red lines?”

“No.”

He opened his eyes, unable to keep them closed anymore. Oulana’s placid, ancient face greeted him. It was easy to see in the tilt of her wrinkled ears and wicked yellow of her eyes that she wasn’t fully human, but she refused to say what else had mixed into her blood over the generations. She had a ruthlessness about her that had pleased Pavel right from the beginning. There were no coddling or kind words. Only what worked and what did not. The first few sessions had left him in agony. Annie and Edris had taken turns coming to pick him up and all but pouring him into the shuttle home. Slowly though, it had gotten better. Two hours every morning and another hour of practice before he went to bed made their mark.

“That’s good.” Oulana took his hand, putting her fingers at his pulse point. “You are progressing quickly.”

“I need to give the Captain an answer soon.” No one had mentioned it to him though the entire bridge crew of the Enterprise came in and out of the house as if it were a new base of operations.

“Is there a question coming?” She goaded. 

“Yes.” He frowned. “Will I be dependable there? Or will this all come unglued the first time I have to plot our course?”

“You have made progress.” Oulana repeated. “I cannot call you healed because you are not damaged. You were given a skill that you did not have before. It depends on you to use it properly.”

“To see the future.”

“To change it. You have always said that it is not set. You see many choices laid before you and their multitude is a burden. I have given you the tools to sort through them quickly and to make the right choice as you see it.” She raised a thick, white eyebrow. “It’s a gift, in the end. Though I don’t expect you to thank the giver.”

“I cannot see it that way.” On his worst nights, he still dreamed of his mind being torn asunder. Years from now when he had all new nightmares, he knew that that one would still be the worst. “But I can understand where you might.”

“That will have to be enough.” She checked her watch. “Mm, time for you to be getting on now.”

“I will see you tomorrow.”

The entire ride back to New Orleans, he thought about his future. He kept his breathing even, worked through each step that Oulana had laid out for him. There were no more red lines. Only twisting gray ribbons that undulated in a sensual promise. They would always be a distraction, but they could now be a useful one. Gently, he teased through them, running down obscure paths that he hadn’t seen before.

The world had never been big enough for Pavel. He had longed for space, for its infinite varieties and wide vistas. Now he had all of that in his own mind, a million million ways to travel. 

When he climbed off the shuttle, he looked around the port with new eyes. Six months ago, he had washed up here as if shipwrecked. He had walked a dozen blocks, stumbling into the first bar he could find and decided to drown his worries in liquor the color of emeralds. It could have been another lifetime for how far away it felt.

Exiting the port, he waved down a taxi. The city he had grown to love rolled by the windows. The day was bright and the weather unseasonably warm. He relished the sun pouring through the glass to touch his tanned skin. His hair was growing long again, the faded blue curls drooping over his forehead. He wouldn’t look anything like the haggard angel of Nick’s long ago portrait.

The house appeared empty from the sidewalk, the windchimes muttering among themselves as he mounted the porch. He stopped briefly in his room to take off his sweatshirt. Underneath, he wore a stolen t-shirt with the Ole Miss mascot long since washed away leaving only a shadowy suggestion of where it had once been.

The sound of conversation trickled in through his open window and he followed it into the courtyard. It was a small party compared to some of the crowds they’d had lately. Hikaru sat in one corner with Annie perched precariously on his lap. He had an arm wrapped around her waist as if to steady her. Next to them, Edris had melted into a chair with her bare feet pointed up towards the sky while she listened to Scotty talk in broad gestures.

Pavel slipped into an empty chair, too full of warm emotion to speak. The conversation went on and he felt no need to add to it. The sky darkened slowly overhead, casting them all in golden light.

“Deep thoughts?” A hand slid over the back of Pavel’s neck and he shivered pleasantly.

“I am happy.” He tilted back his head to smile up at Leonard.

“Yeah?” Leonard leaned down to indulge in upside down kiss. “Me too.”

“Me three!” An all too familiar voice chimed in.

Pavel’s eyes widened in shock.

“Sorry, Darlin’, he followed me home.” 

And there was the Captain, larger than life and twice as vivid. He was stuffed into too tight jeans and t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Unlike the last time they’d seen each other, there was nothing professional about him.

“Jim!” Hikaru grinned. “How was the rock climbing?”

“Hard.” Jim groaned. “My aches have aches. So this is where my entire crew has been hiding out?”

“Yep! This is Annie.” Hikaru kissed her cheek and then waved at Edris, who hadn’t moved a millimeter. “And that’s Edris. It’s their house; we just crash in their space.”

“Nice digs.” The Captain shook hands with Annie and executed a neat bow in Edris’ direction. “So. Hey, Chekov.”

“Hello.” Pavel stood. “We can talk in the kitchen. Everyone must be hungry and Scotty has added new recipes to the replicator.”

Leonard’s hand brushed over his back, a comfort and an inquiry. Pavel shook his head. He had to handle this on his own. The Captain followed him docilely back to the kitchen, leaning up against the counter to watch him as he keyed orders into the replicator.

“I thought you’d taken up home cooking.” He offered tentatively.

“I am too tired tonight.” Pavel frowned down at the chicken forming under the dispenser. “You did not come this far to ask me about culinary preferences.”

“I miss seventeen year old you, sometimes.” An annoyed exhalation punctured the air. “You were easier to understand then.”

“I was a child. A brilliant one, but a child nonetheless.” Pavel tapped his fingers over the keys. “I had to grow up eventually.”

“I know. I was always proud of you, you know.”

The words settled uneasily around Pavel. It’s good to hear them from someone he held in high esteem for so long, but they sound disconcertingly father-like. Pavel had given up paternal approval the year before his father died.

“That is kind of you.” He replied neutrally.

“I’m not good at this.” The Captain fidgeted a blur in Pavel’s peripheral vision. “I’m sorry. About Abraxis.”

“I thought we had agreed that I did not want apologies.” Pavel rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“That’s what I thought, but it’s been pointed out to me that maybe you just don’t want to forgive.”

He had to wonder what crewmate had fed the Captain that idea. He suspected Hikaru, but it could have easily been Nyota.

“There is nothing to forgive.” He turned to face the Captain, who grimaced. “You had to negotiate with them. I always understood that.”

“Then why the hell are you so mad at me?” For a moment, there was something else broiling under the Captain’s expression. Something hurt and confused as a beaten child. It reminded Pavel of rumors he had heard over the years. Guilt tugged at him.

“Because there had to be someone to blame and you have always been strong enough to take it.” The words were dry and horrible on his tongue. The truth was like that sometimes. “You always just... take it.”

“Yeah. That’s me. Captain Jim T. Kirk, agony aunt.” The smile faded before it began.

“It was unfair. Is unfair. I shouldn’t... I am sorry.” Pavel sighed. “I am very sorry.”

The Captain must have seen something else in his face aside from tepid apologies because he crossed the space between them to throw an arm over Pavel’s shoulders. They were the same height since Pavel’s last growth spurt, but the Captain still seemed larger, almost overwhelming.

“When I was twelve,” the Captain said quietly, “I was sent to live on a colony. Get out of my stepdad’s hair, you know? Things went very wrong.”

Pavel was very good at math. He knew the Captain’s birthday.

“Tarsus.” He breathed out.

“Yeah.” The Captain’s fingers tightened on his shoulder. “I don’t talk about it. We’re not going to talk about it now. But. I get it, ok? If you need to be mad at me, fine. But come back. Please.”

“I was always going to come back if I could.” He swallowed hard.

“Were you?” The Captain searched his eyes. “See, I don’t think so. I’m not sure I would if I had a home like this either. We’re orphans out there. I know that. Maybe there are parents, friends, family waiting for us here, but we can’t care all that much. Not with what we agree to do.”

“Annie and Edris are my friends.” It nearly hurt to say, but the kind of pain of pulling off a scab to reveal pink healing skin underneath. “But the Enterprise. You are my family. And I am coming home.”

The Captain...no. No…Jim. He had to be Jim again or there was no point. Jim let out a victory yell and spun Pavel around the kitchen until they were both queasy. Leonard ventured in, clearly ready to punch his best friend if necessary. When he caught sight of Pavel’s face though, he broke out into a wide smile. It was only when he leaned in for a kiss that Pavel realized he was smiling too. Broad and bright.

As they kissed, grey ribbons floated in and out of Pavel’s vision. Possible futures and all of them headed outward.


	9. Epilogue

The saxophone played low and sweet into the night. Pavel sighed contentedly, stretching over the bed. He should get up, at the very least to change for sleep, but the bed smelled like sex and cedar and the pillow was soft under his cheek. Maybe he could just stay awhile, drowsing.

“You look like a cat with all the cream.” Leonard sounded amused and Pavel turned blindly toward his voice, reaching out to pull him down unto the bed. He came without resistance and they wrapped around each other.

“That is because I have had all the cream and the canary too.” Pavel sighed happily.

“You beat Sulu’s team that hard?”

“Mmm.” Pavel grinned. “They did not know what hit them. Calculus at a thousand miles an hour. How was your day?”

“Long. Awful.” The point of Leonard’s nose lodged itself in the crux of Pavel’s neck and one large hand rubbed sweet circles on his stomach. “Stitched two idiots back together then knocked them out. Did inventory, came up short. So now I’ve got to hunt down some feeble brained idiot and put him through rehab.”

“You could throw him out an airlock.” He said more because it would make Leonard laugh than anything else. Sure enough, he can feel the rumble of a chuckle through his skin.

“What are we listening to anyway?”

“Our mysterious saxophone player.” Pavel opened his eyes at last, taking in the long line of his lover’s body. “Annie recorded him and sent it to me. She says hello, by the way.”

“That’s nice.” Leonard lifted his head a little. The crease between his eyebrows deepened and Pavel waited for the question. “It’s not a mystery to you, is it?”

“I haven’t looked.” He admitted. “Sometimes the little things should stay secret.”

“I can’t imagine it. Having the choice to know everything.”

Leonard’s said the same thing in a hundred different ways over the past year. Usually Pavel didn’t bother to respond with more than a ‘yes, it’s strange’ or ‘It is what it is’. Tonight though, he was feeling mellow and a little raw with Annie’s comm. The music too might be at fault. He’d fallen asleep with that saxophone in his ears more nights than he could recall.

“In ancient Greece there was a woman they called the Oracle of Delphi. She would sit on a tripod stool, breathing in the steam that rose from a hole in the ground. They thought she channeled Apollo through her and that she could tell people of the future.” Pavel reached for the hand Leonard had left on Pavel’s stomach. He twined their fingers together. “They say now that the fumes that came up probably caused her to hallucinate. There were gases trapped under the rocks that are bad for human minds. How frightened she must have been, her mind not her own. I am much luckier.”

“You’ve been thinking a lot about this.” Leonard said quietly.

“Yes. I read a little about the people calling themselves prophets or psychics or oracles. It seemed prudent.” He stretched again, then leaned up for a kiss. “But it doesn’t really matter.”

“No?” Leonard’s eyes were heavy lidded now. Less interested in ancient myth and more on what might happen in their bed right now.

“No, none of them were like me, not really. I may see the future, but I live here and now. I have to breathe through this minute and the next, not go wandering down what may or may not be.”

He kissed Leonard again and then again. They made love half in and out of uniform, the saxophone playing mellow under it all. Afterwards, Leonard slept and Pavel crossed their quarters to turn off the music. With great care, he reached for a bottle high up on a shelf and poured himself a full glass of emerald liquor.

The absinthe coated the inside of his glass and filled his mouth with the taste of aniseed. People drank this once in crowded dark cafes filled with smoke and too many words. They poured it over sugar cubes and dreamt in technicolor brightness of possibility.


End file.
